{"id":4614,"date":"2019-07-08T13:24:28","date_gmt":"2019-07-08T18:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/?p=4614"},"modified":"2019-10-25T15:58:50","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T20:58:50","slug":"amal-kassir-poet-for-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/2019\/07\/08\/amal-kassir-poet-for-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Amal Kassir: Poet For Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Bethany Vonseggern<\/p>\n

In a world where society tends to focus on differences instead of familiarity, negativity instead of positivity
\nand hate instead of love there is a solid voice of hope \u2013 Amal Kassir<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kassir, a story-telling activist and international poet from Denver, Colorado, travels the world speaking to
\ngroups about her experiences as a Syrian-American Muslim woman in modern society.<\/p>\n

As a daughter of a German-American mother and a Syrian father Kassir speaks often of her dual identity
\nthat has built her into a human being with profound understanding of what it means to have two different sides of a bloodline. It is with her dual identity that she is forced to see how both sides are affected and how humanity makes the truth more important than politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get these words like \u2018war\u2019 and \u2018politics\u2019 and\u2019 religion,\u2019 and you build these words up high like they are walls – like they are walls you should not cross,\u201d Kassir said. \u201cWe tend to forget that there are people behind those walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kassir\u2019s story-telling focuses on the strength of humanity through struggle and how we must understand
\nthe person and not just hear the message despite how it may make us feel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not possible to un-feel a feeling, it\u2019s not possible,\u201d Kassir said. \u201cI think the greatest impact that my work has is it\u2019s the ultimate reminder of the human behind the controversy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like most, Kassir gets discouraged, but she said she focuses on staying sincere as she tells the stories of her
\nlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re trying to please the people instead of delivering the message with integrity, you are going to
\nlose sense of what is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite being discouraged at times and facing discrimination because she is a Muslim woman in America, Kassir stays positive and hopeful not only for herself, but others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a new generation of young Muslims coming up and I want my little sisters to have the courage to wear their scarves and be proud of who they are,\u201d Kassir said.<\/p>\n

Exploration and understanding is important to Kassir. She believes despite negativity we should never settle and always keep learning. Kassir strongly emphasized that it\u2019s all right to be offended sometimes, because we all feel attacked; look beyond the hashtags and headlines and focus on person behind the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when you hear the real stories, when you let yourself hear the real stories, you\u2019ll come to learn that
\nyour heart has the capacity to expand itself,\u201d Kassir said.<\/p>\n

When Kassir visited Western<\/a> in the Fall she shared a message of understanding and hope. She shared
\ntragic stories of her family being killed in Syria and the discrimination she faces in day-to-day life. According to Kassir, her stories are not meant for one to get lost in the depth of the darkness below but to explore and feel pressure before heading back up to see the stars of hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be foolish to say that I think absolute peace is something that can be accomplished,\u201d Kassir said. \u201cThat would be very optimistic of me and I believe hope is far more important than optimism in a lot of cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Kassir influences hundreds, maybe even thousands around the world, who and what is it that
\ninfluences her? According to Kassir, the character of the Prophet Mohammed \u2013 peace be upon him, her father and his strength in the time of tragedy and the struggles of the survivor who have managed to make it out alive.<\/p>\n

Some of Kassir\u2019s most memorable moments have been when people come up to her after her speech to tell her how her words have changed their life. One particular instance Kassir described was when a \u201cmiddle-aged, white, veteran man\u201d came up to her, a \u201clittle Muslim girl,\u201d who has just finished reading poetry about ISIS and told her he would vote for her in the next presidential election.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just a person and it shows how impactful our words are,\u201d Kassir said. \u201cI think my words have an impact because words have had an impact on me; stories have meaning and I think storytelling is a type of activism because it really does change people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Bethany Vonseggern In a world where society tends to focus on differences instead of familiarity, negativity instead of positivity and hate instead of love there is a solid voice of hope \u2013 Amal Kassir. Kassir, a story-telling activist and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[92],"tags":[688,486,687,689],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4614"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4892,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614\/revisions\/4892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}